1. Field of Invention
The present invention refers to a method of data entry to an electronic device, and in particular to multilingual text input to an electronic device, which has a ten-key keyboard.
2. Description of Related Art
Today there are a plurality of devices and systems that require data entry by means of a keyboard having a relatively few data entry keys relative to multilingual data input, comprising mobile phones, ATM machines, information appliances, personal data assistants, industrial control key pads, remote control, interactive TV, door security control, calculators, electronic dictionaries, personal computers, air condition control pads, medical devices, electronic control panels, and type-writers. In many cases the keys are used to enter multiple characters of the English language, for example, such as with the telephone.
Text entry in Chinese and derivative languages, such as Japanese and Korean, is difficult with a small number of keys on a typical key board and very difficult using a ten key entry system such as found on a mobile phone. The Chinese language was formed centuries ago in ideograms, or characters. These ideograms were formed from pictures of things that the Chinese people knew. A very simple example is the formation of the ideogram for “east” 202 shown in FIG. 1A for the Chinese language. A symbol for the sun 201 is combined with a symbol for a tree 207, such that the sun is rising behind the tree. Starting with what the ancient Chinese people saw, the sun was drawn by the ancient Chinese people as a circle with a dot in the center 200 and was simplified to a box with a line through the center of the box 201. The tree was originally drawn by the ancient Chinese with an outline of the foliage, a trunk and some roots 206. A modern Chinese version of the tree 207 is a cross like structure with curved line on either side of the post of the cross representing the roots of the tree. The horizontal member of the cross represents the branches of the tree. The symbol for “east” 202 shows the sun rising behind the tree. More recently the modern version of “east” 202 has been modified in the simplified Chinese 203, which loses some of the historical significance pertaining to how the symbol originated. Certainly the “sun”, the “tree” and “east” can each be represented by a key but there are thousands of Chinese and derivative language ideograms or characters, which makes use of small keypads to create a text communication very difficult.
In FIG. 1B is shown a second example of how the present day Chinese ideograms developed. The ancient Chinese saw a fish and created an ideogram for a fish 210. This ideogram was simplified in modern Chinese by drawing a box with lines crossing through the box to represent the body of the fish. Above the box rests the head, and below the box four lines symbolize the tail. In simplified Chinese the tail is further simplified to a line. In modern Chinese an ideogram for sound, Zhou, 213 is combined with the ideogram for fish to form a modern Chinese character for snapper fish 214. The simplified Chinese version for the snapper fish 215 replaces the lines representing the tail with a single line.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are very simple examples of the difficulties of people trying to communicate using a keypad entry system developed for the English language while trying to use their native language. There are no keys for sun, tree, east, fish, sound and snapper fish. If there were there would still be no keys for other Chinese characters. As short messaging services becomes more widely used as with a mobile phone, a method is needed to allow an easier usage. The mobile phone presents a difficult device for entry of complex characters and symbols. The small form factor of the mobile phone and the limited keypad is also inconvenient for the entry of text using the English language, which has only 26 characters. Multiple strokes of the same key are required to allow the text entry in the English language, and it is even more difficult and inconvenient for languages such as Chinese.
In various computer applications the input methods for a personal data assistant (PDA) can be different from that of a remote control, for instance. For users of the Asian languages the method of data entry from device to device provides more difficulty. An existing input method for the Chinese language comprising Chang-Jie or DaYi is useful in personal computers but is not very useful in devices with small keypad devices such as mobile phones. This creates a need for a platform independent input method for the Asian languages. Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages have been separately computerized, which has made them not compatible with each other on a modern computer platform even though these languages share a common background due to historical reasons, which can allow them to be unified together.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,765,504 B2 (Yen-I Ouyang et al.) is directed to inputting pinyin symbols using keys “2” through “9” on a numeric keypad so that pinyin symbol combinations can be converted into Chinese characters and words. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,525,676 B2 (Kazuhiro Kiasaichi et al.) a keypad entry of data is directed to the selection of one of a plurality of alphabets distributed to sequentially entered key combinations whereupon character conversion is executed by a dictionary means, wherein the dictionary means stores numeric strings and meaningful characters. U.S. Pat. No. 5,952,942 (Sreeram Balakrishnan et al.) is directed to a method of text entry by activating keys of a keypad where the keys represent various characters and whereupon a dictionary is searched for character combinations that correspond to the keys that are pressed.
The Chinese language has been developed over four thousand years and contains many pieces of historical value in literature, science and engineering; however the Chinese language has difficulty with computerization. There exists a need to create a good human-computing device interface that can help people easily link the Chinese character set with a computing device. There are some input methods and encoding schemes that attempt to provide an ease of entry for the Asian languages, but these have not been very successful. A method is needed that will not only allow easier entry of Asian languages, also be useful with other languages, such as Greek, Russian, Arabic and benefit users of English and other European languages.